Yesterday, I turned out for one of the Lincoln Tri teams at the National Club Relays event held at Holme PierrePont near Nottingham.
I was the third man in a four man relay team for the afternoon race, in a team called the 'Horny Imps' - boy, it was gonna be a long afternoon !
I followed my usual routine of turning up at the event about an hour and a quarter before my published start time, which usually gives me plenty of time to have a good look around, set things up, register etc. Well, next time, remind me to turn up a least a day early, cos it was very, very busy with what looked like every triathlon club in the country represented. First job then, find the rest of my team, this took an age, cos there was so many people milling about. I found the club's gazebo, where another team were looking for their last team member, who also had inconveniently forgotten to turn up at least a day earlier !
Eventally, I found them , we sort of got ourselves organised and I started to be able to relax a little bit. I made my way upstairs for a race t-shirt, but they had run out !!!! There was a pile of XXL left and that was all, a bit piss poor really....um ! Nevermind at least there was the beautiful summer weather to look forward to......or not!!
It rained ! When it wasn't just raining it was raining torrentially, conditions were very wet to say the least ! As a team we did a walk of transitions and agreed where we would stand so that we could find each other to hand over the baton (or purple elastic band as it is otherwise known) at the end of our individual legs of the relay. this done, I lubed up, slipped on the old wetsuit and we made our way on mass down to the start line, where we stood for many minutes in the pouring rain, trying to make out what was being said in the race briefing. This was my part of the race..
Swim - 9.56
I stood where we had agreed would be the best place to find each other to exchange the baton, seems that every other team had picked the same spot and it was like trying to get served at the bar in a very busy city centre bar on a saturday night. There were arms waving everywhere, and how my team mate saw me I don't know but see me he did and it was time to gracefully ?!? enter the water in a sort of stumble come belly flop ! I swam well, sighted very well and thought I had made good time, but when I stood up at the end of the swim, we all had to negotiate walking along a cobbled section before getting onto the matting. This wasted a lot of time, so the time of 9.56 was my first sub 10 minute 400m swim, but it was a minute faster than that in reality at least !
Bike 25.34
The good thing about the relays is that you have lots of time between your legs, so I was able to go back to the gazebo to get changed at a more leisurely pace. I walked the bike down to the transition area and then waited for my team mate to bring me the hallowed elastic band( baton). Whilst I was waiting it absolutely bucketed it down, and once I had the baton, I was off in the pouring rain. It was balls out(not literally cos that would have been painful and cold) the whole way round for me, and knowing there was going to be a lot of time to rest at the end, I gave it everything that I had. There was also a new addition to the animals that have tried to kill me whilst out on a bike - this time it was Geese !!! I had to do a last minute swerve to avoid becoming geese feed !
I overtook some people on the ride, and was overtaken by lots of people, and when I got in their wake, I enjoyed a spray of mucky water that freckled me. 25 minutes and 34 seconds gave me an average speed of 21.5 mph which is 2mph faster than I had ever managed before. Bobsyfandango !!!
Run 27.19
From the end of my bike leg to the start of my run leg there was a gap of around an hour so once I changed into my run gear I had lots of time to have a look around and spent most of it in the Planet X stand trying hard not to give in to temptation. I eventually made my way down to the holding pen where we were waiting for our runners to come in and hand over. Whilst we were waiting the torrential rain came hammering down again. Brilliant ! To be honest, we train in it, we swim in it, we should be used to it !
My run leg started in the hammering rain, and apart from not being able to start my garmin, my pace was good considering the first quarter of the lap is run on grass which I hate, and was hilly which I'm starting not to mind too much. After about three minutes, I managed to start the garmin so that I could be sure of my pace which I tried to keep fast to have a good chance of beating my PB. I ran 58.18 in a 10k around this course last year and knew what I needed to do to be under 29 minutes. I had though, forgotten how bloody boring running around the lake at HP really was so I tried to catch the man in front of me to break up the monotiny - but I couldn't quite manage it though, however, by tracking this athlete, I got round in a very good time. in total the Horny Imps came in 137th out of 237 teams with a time of 3.39.35.
Overall then a very wet day, three personal bests, no t-shirt, no race pack freebie at the end, no impulse bike purchases(thankfully), injury no worse than it was , and a great feeling that I did my absolute best for my team. A good days work !
